Untitled
by amchantler
Summary: First published WMC fic. Currently ongoing. Lindsay, Cindy, a bar, and bourbon. Any tips would be excellent. T for a couple of swears.
1. Chapter 1

"What?!" barks Lindsay, managing to sound like she's in interrogation, despite having drunk five margaritas. She squints, attempting to laser-vision an answer from the two smirking girls opposite her.

Jill just smirks harder. Claire raises and eyebrow and tilts her head, looking to Lindsay's right. Lindsay cranes her neck round, and is rather surprised to notice a weight against her shoulder and hair tickling her skin.

Cindy is nestled against her, head neatly tucked into the curve of her neck. At some point, Lindsay's arm has apparently migrated, slung around Cindy's shoulder, snugging her into her leather jacket.

It's only half-past nine. Lindsay glances again at Cindy, then arches an eyebrow at Jill and Claire.

"She was here and down at least three drinks when we arrived," Claire explains. "Tough day for her."

There's a brief pause where Lindsay prevaricates. Jill sips at the last of her drink. Claire finishes hers, turns to Jill and shouts over the music, "I should get back to Ed. Share a taxi?"

Jill shrugs. "Sure."

They both look to Lindsay. "Wha-at?" she shoots at them.

"Linds? You gonna be okay with Cindy?"

Lindsay blushes, hard, and is thankful that the lights are low. Not that Claire, eagle-eyed, hasn't noticed. She smiles (it's more like a grimace) and pats Claire on the arm. Looks down at Cindy, and feels her heart tug a little when she sees the adorable half-smile on her face. She briefly wonders if Cindy is dreaming, is unsure of quite hot to wake her. Awkwardly, she shifts her shoulder in an attempt to jog the red-head awake.

"Cindy?" No response. Lindsay rolls her eyes. "Cindy. CINDY."

"Mmmlindswhatokay." Cindy's smile widens and she snuggles harder into Lindsay, throwing an arm across her midriff so that Lindsay's trapped against the seat. She rolls her eyes again, but despite the irritated look on her face, a quiet voice at the back of her consciousness declares that she could get used to this. Although preferably they would be horizontal, beneath her quilt, rather than slumped in a booth in the corner of an overly loud club.

Jill and Claire shuffle out of the booth. On the way out, Claire ducks her head and whispers, "Look after her."

Lindsay didn't know she could actually blush harder. It must be the temperature of the club, which is pretty much equivalent to an average day in the Amazon rainforest. To counteract the blush which still stains her cheeks, she glare the best she can at Claire and Jill.

Jill is still smirking. She winks, and Lindsay mouths, "Shut _up_" at her. Claire just smiles sweetly and waves on the way out.

Lindsay death-glares at their retreating forms. Sadly, they don't disintegrate into neat piles of ash.

To her surprise, when she begins to shift (she's been sitting so long that her butt's gone to sleep), Cindy yawns and opens her eyes. "I fell asleep?" she asks. "In here?"

Lindsay can't help but smile down at her. "That's what happens when you're three drinks down before we turn up." Cindy opens her mouth to interject, but Lindsay presses on. "What _were_ you drinking anyway?"

"Some sort of… cocktail-y thing? Honestly? It didn't seem that strong, it tasted like fruit juice."

"You also pulled three all-nighters in a row. And," Lindsay points out, "you were nearly shot."

"Oh yeah," Cindy responds blearily. "That. I think that's what made me go for the fruit juice in the first place."

"Share a cab?" Lindsay suggests? She's not comfortable to leave a wobbly Cindy to make her own way home. There's a long pause. Cindy takes a breath, looks away, looks back.

"Can I stay at your place? I'll take the sofa." She looks up with those goddamned doe eyes, and Lindsay can see that she's barely holding it together.

Lindsay swallows. "Course you can," she says, roughly, and guides Cindy out of the club, one hand on the small of her back.

In the taxi, Cindy leans against Lindsay again. "I hate closing my eyes," she whispers. "I keep remembering it all." Lindsay isn't sure what an appropriate response would be, so she just hugs her closer, murmurs quietly.

The idea of Cindy staying in her apartment makes Linsday's stomach flip a little. The good kind of flip, she realises, and she tamps the feeling and rasps, "You'll be okay. We'll deal, we always do."

"Thanks." Cindy closes her eyes, slides her arm back around Lindsay's midriff, a warm hand slipping casually beneath layers of leather and shirt and tank top. Lindsay's stomach tenses reflexively and she bites at her bottom lip, but the weight it somehow comforting and she slowly relaxes, letting the passing streetlights wash over them.


	2. Chapter 2

Lindsay is interrupted from her pleasant doze by the taxi driver grunting at her. He points to the meter. She manages to one-handedly extract her wallet without waking Cindy, and throws a couple of bills at the driver.

"Wake up," she murmurs, and Cindy jerks awake, eyes wide. "Shhh. It's 're here now," Linsday reassures, and they walk up to her apartment, Cindy rubbing at her eyes.

When they get through the front door, Martha clacks across the floor to greet them. "Coffee?" Lindsay offers, absentmindedly patting her Sweetness on the head.

"Got anything stronger?" Cindy asks. "I think I need it."

Lindsay is rather surprised at Cindy, who was seemingly almost comatose after whatever was in the fruit juice tasting cocktail and a further four margaritas. She pauses, then remembers that she's not on call tomorrow. She also recalls the flip her stomach did earlier, and thinks that something stronger might settle it.

"Bourbon's in the cupboard," she points, and walks into the bedroom to change.

She returns to the lounge clad in an old SFPD t-shirt and jogging bottoms. Cindy is curled up at one end of the course, cradling a highball of bourbon. Another glass, half-full, rests on the table. Cindy's already made inroads into hers.

"Poured for you," she states, and Lindsay nods her thanks. She thumps down onto the other end of the couch, takes a healthy sip from her glass, and drops her head back onto the cushions. She's wide awake but exhausted at the same time, although this is nothing unusual – this is how she feels every time they wrap up a big case.

Cindy seems to have deflated even further. Lindsay slumps down into the couch, stretches her legs. All her muscles ache.

"How…" Cindy begins. "How do you get used to…" She flutters her hand vaguely. "All this? People trying to shoot you all the time." Her voice sounds broken, and she's doing the doe-eyed thing again.

"Uh." Lindsay rakes a hand through her hair. "Well. I'm a trained police officer. It's kinda part of my job."

"I should be used to it," Cindy mutters. She tightens the grip on her highball, takes a large gulp.

"I knew I should have put you in Holding," Lindsay sighs. "At least you'd have been safe there."  
Cindy grimaces at the thought, but her eyes are suddenly glistening and tears stream down her cheeks. "I was so scared," she sobs, "How can you not be scared? Every day, when you go out there, and do your police…thing…" She trails off. Wipes angrily at her face.

Again, Lindsay isn't sure what to say, or to do, so she goes with her gut (it's not let her down yet) and pulls Cindy into a tight hug. Eventually, Cindy stops sobbing, sniffles, composes herself. Two minutes later she looks fresh as daisies.

The rest of the evening is mostly a bourbon-induced blur. At some point they order pizza, they play a half-assed drinking game, and they put on a DVD that neither of them really watches. When it finishes, Cindy is dozing and a glance at the clock says it's 3am.

Lindsay shakes Cindy gently. "Cindy. Bedtime." Her eyes flutter open and she yawns, open-mouthed. Lindsay smoothes some hair back from Cindy's face. When she gets up she looks so small, and Lindsay says, "You take the bed. Goodness knows I'm used to sleeping on the couch with Martha."

Cindy stretches, murmurs her thanks and heads towards the bedroom without a backwards glance. Too tired to consider finding a quilt, Lindsay flicks off the lights then flops back onto the couch, dragging the comforter over her. She's asleep in seconds.


	3. Chapter 3

"Uhhhhh."

Head pounding, Lindsay tries to unstick her eyelids, and, after a brief struggle, resorts to using her fingers to pry them open. She silent thanks whatever gods out there that the curtains are drawn – sunlight this early, on her day off no less, is simply not an option.  
Her bed seems warmer than usual, but her sleep-fogged mind chooses to ignore it. Stifling another melodramatic groan, she gathers the strength to roll onto her side. Peers at the bedside clock.

6.52am. What.

It is entirely possible that she is still drunk. Lindsay flips onto her back. Huffs, digs the heels of her palms as hard as she dares into her eye sockets. Lets out a frustrated growl.

"Linds?"

Her head whips around so fast that it actually bounces off her pillow a little. Vision blurry, she blinks a few times, attempting to focus on the pass of red inches from her face. Cindy.

Cindy?!

Her body ricochets backwards away from the Cindy-shaped mass on the other side of her bed. A strangled squwark issues from her, and she coughs hastily.

"Cindy?" Her brain slips through what she remembers of last night. Oh. The club, and margaritas, and fruit juice cocktails, and Cindy, and bourbon. Although she swears that, like the honourable Inspector that she is, she let Cindy have her bed and took the couch for herself, squashing up with Sweet Martha.

"Mmph. Hey. Lindsay." Voice still sleep-soaked and muffled by a pillow. "Whassthetime?"

Having recovered from the shock of waking up to Cindy _in her bed_, she slowly creeps back towards the centre of the mattress, if only so that she doesn't tumble to the floor. She pauses, and rubs furiously again at her eyes.

"Why," she eventually croaks, "am I awake at 7am?" She stares at the ceiling, willing the fluff that's clouding her head to go away. "On my day off," she adds, trying not to grind her teeth in irritation.

The weight on the other side of the bed shifts. "Umph," comes the answer, and she feels the quilt being tugged over Cindy's head. Seconds later, she hears a tiny snore, and she can't help her lips quirking in a smile.

It's 7am on her day off, and she has woken up to sharing a bed with Cindy, who she may or may not have a thing for. She tends to avoid thinking about it too strenuously. _Fuck this_, she thinks, _it's too early_, and she rolls over into sleep.

**A/N No idea where I'm going with this, and also no idea why I've published it. Blame it on weird ex-partners and utter boredom. Sorry folks!**


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